Sneak Peek: Excerpts from Dirty Old Musical!
Dirty Old Musical (DOM) is an upcoming original production produced by Spotlight Artists Centre, a company headed by theater stalwarts Robert Seña and Isay Alvarez-Seña. The company’s first foray into musical production started off with their remakes of Magsimula Ka and Katy. DOM is going to be its first original Filipino musical.
How did it all start?
Musical director Myke Salomon, best known for being the musical director of PETA’s biggest hit, Rak of Aegis, texted the idea to Robert Seña. He thought it would be interesting to talk about issues that men go through in their 50’s. Seña mentions that they initially thought of submitting it for The Virgin Labfest, but soon realized that they wanted it to be a full length musical instead. They asked multi-award winning playwright Rody Vera to write the book.
(READ: Dirty Old Musical Promises Clean, Wholesome Fun)
The show revolves around 5 men who were part of the most popular, fictional boyband in the 80’s called The Bench Boys. Director Dexter M. Santos tells the press more about the production.
Dexter Santos: “It’s a very, very exciting piece. For one, hindi masyadong naaaddress iyung themes ng 50’s, ng ganung klaseng age, which you call the middle-age crisis. I think Rody Vera was able to create a libretto and a script na naaaddress iyung concerns na ‘to. Of course number two, exciting in terms of the jukebox musical. Usually ang ginagawang jukebox musical dito sa Pilipinas is confined with one artist. I think what’s interesting about this piece is tamang-tama iyung milieu na sabi nga nila iyung The Bench Boys ay isang 80’s group. It’s a fictional 80’s group na sobrang sikat noong 80’s na nagpataob sa The Dawn at tsaka sa Side A. So ibig sabihin sobrang kakaiba para patalbugin nila.”
Santos also talks about the powerhouse cast and the magic of the music from the 80’s.
Santos: “Lagi ngang sinasabi na iba ang pakiramdam ng mga 80’s music, original Filipino music, and with this roster of actors, I think what’s going to be very exciting and what’s going to be very nice about the piece is how these actors are gonna flesh out the songs at mabigyan ng ibang kwento at mabigyan ng ibang flavor iyung mga music na naging gusto ng mga bata ng mga panahon na iyun. At siyempre maganda rin para sa mga bata ngayon na maappreciate at malaman at maintindihan nila iyung music na iyun. I think aside from it being intimate, being fun, being exciting, it’s something to look forward to and working with them is gonna be exciting. Sana huwag lang sila mapagod. [laughs]
The powerhouse cast includes Ricky Davao, Nonie Buencamino, Robert Seña, Michael Williams, John Arcilla, Ima Castro, Kitkat, and Fred Lo. The musical will feature 3 original songs, with the two being the first two songs performed in the video below. The first song, entitled Tunay Kang Kaibigan, is the boyband’s fictional one-hit-wonder. Robert Seña and Myke Salomon collaborated to write all the original music. The rest will feature some of the most popular songs from the 80’s.
The show will run from Sept 1-10 (Thursdays-Saturdays) at the Music Museum.
